


Locks

by Dudettes



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: American spelling but british slang, Crushes, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Humor, M/M, POV Alternating, Somewhat vulgar british swearing but no f-bombs or s-bombs, a grain of angst, lots of eddisode references, slice of life-ish, using singular they pronouns for strangers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-07-02 18:32:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15802209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dudettes/pseuds/Dudettes
Summary: Matt's bored. He likes to run his fingers through his red locks.Edd's drawing. He's pretty okay at keeping a secret under lock and key.Tom's playing the bass. He's forgotten to lock his room door.Ringo's... Ringo's just being Ringo.Matt and Edd hang out in Edd's room and do various activities, such as watching Edd draw, drawing together, petting Ringo, and being just a little bit awkward.





	1. To Love Yourself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wisterinite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisterinite/gifts).



> _The Eddsworld characters are considered distinct from their real-life counterparts. I don't write stuff about real people and won't use their real names._   
>  _I would also like to ask the reader to not jump to the fluff. That's all._

 

Rainy season was in full swing in Edd, Matt, and Tom's little corner of England. It was the evening that the three friends had gotten back from their cool trip to vet for Ringo's sake. Yet that wasn't a sarcastic sentence at all, because every doctor at the veterinary clinic they had randomly chosen online was a kind of human-animal hybrid: tigermen, horsemen, birdmen, unfortunate turtlemen… A diverse cast, and every one of them had their own little animal quirks.

The boys figured it out themselves through the habits, appearances, and miswordings of the staff, but didn't directly say anything about it to them (Tom couldn’t help muttering a couple of snide comments to himself and sharing puns with the others). Although, they couldn't help but all burst out laughing when the dogman, with whom they were having a perfectly civil discussion about the state of their cat, suddenly gasped and shot out of the observation room at the sight of a squirrel outside. From the small window, they helplessly watched the vet wildly flail, squirm and twist in circles, charging after the little rodent at full speed in the nearby park. The cat secretary (a svelte Siamese cat who had a soft spot for their feline) had to call in someone else to examine Ringo after Tom, the first to have somewhat caught his breath, had informed them. Ringo visibly didn't like that person so much anyway, what with the inconvenient cat-dog dynamic.

Two hours later in the cozy waiting room-lobby, while their tabby was being taken care of, the three overheard a secretary and a vet, possibly half owl and half lion from the big eyes and uncontrollable sandy hair respectively, muttering together about how "Jeremy did it again", provoking a couple of suppressed snorts from the boys at the ridiculous memory.

Otherwise, the waiting process was long and tedious. They had been told to stay because it "wouldn't take long", but that slowly proved itself to be false. At least the radio was playing Matt's favorite station. The same station that Tom blocked out with his earphones and apparently his own source of music in the shape of his phone. Edd occupied himself by sketching, and at one point, covertly drawing Matt, until the latter had noticed. After he'd eagerly demanded to see it, he showered Edd in mushy compliments about how he drew his hair just right, but the recipient only sent him a monotonous "thanks" in return before taking back the sketchbook.

Meanwhile, Ringo was supposedly being washed thoroughly. The poor dear had walked into some sticky glue-like substance, strong enough to be used for a construction of some sort, perhaps from Eduardo's unnecessary renovations, as Edd had hissed, investigating. The bottom half of her body was coated with it and her movements were awkward as a result. This hadn’t been the first time Ringo had gotten into trouble because of her wandering, and who the blame could be laid on was debatable, but Edd had seemed determined to chew his neighbors out, probably just to be the one with the upper hand.

Back home, the black tabby's souvenir of the trip was a strong scent of cooking oil embedded into her fur, since it had been declared the most convenient substance to use to dissolve the glue. She was roaming somewhere in the house since it was raining quite heavily. It had been a pretty long and boring day despite its unexpected nature, so Tom and Edd had grabbed a few snacks and gone to their rooms.

Matt on the other hand had immediately flopped onto the armchair in his preferred position: perpendicular to the intended sitting position, facing the ceiling, his legs dangling out and supported by an armrest, and his fingers running through his wavy red locks. He liked to watch them quickly but quietly squashing back into place in his reflection in the dark TV screen, and had been indulging in how adorable he looked for the last few minutes.

The surface of his face was so thankfully smooth, spared from his occasional acne, and his eyelashes seemed somehow fuller, and his round, amethyst-hued eyes sparkled breezy and radiant in the most gentle manner, their surrounding curves forming the picture of cheeriness. He held his elbows in the air so he could caress his ever silky ginger tufts, but felt unsatisfied with the way his arms hung on the side, moving them closer to frame his face. Perfect.

Fashion-wise, he was sporting his new jean shorts that reached his knees, and just his usual purple hoodie, since his overcoat had been thrown onto the other couch. He'd also worn his black high-top sneakers, he recalled as he glanced at the doormat, where everyone's shoes were sitting.

He must have given off such a fun-loving and easy-going impression of himself that day, he thought. Fantastic! ...A shame they'd only gone to the vet's though.

Matt loved his body. Thin, but not bony in the slightest, agile, caramel freckles peppered all across it, a bit fragile, and a tad frail, but remarkably pleasing for the eyes. (Likely to him and everyone else.) He knew how lucky he was to feel this way; he had known two transgender friends who were truly on the other side of the spectrum.

They carefully hid what they hated about their bodies every single day, or at least as much as they could, and their physical features went against who they were on the inside. The blond out of the two once told him she would sometimes feel downright _disgusted_ at what the mirror showed her, after he'd nervously asked. Matt was shocked to the point where he had trouble hiding it to be polite. He couldn't ever imagine what that must have been like. Despite the fact that he didn't quite understand that, he tried his best to follow their requests. He didn't always remember to use the right pronouns and terms, since he had never been good with names anyway, although when he got it right, the atmosphere _didn't_ become mysteriously slightly awkward. A win in Matt's eyes.

Matt was in love with how he looked in the TV, and yet for once he knew better than to stare at himself for hours. He'd been thinking about trying to get a better hobby, like Edd had told him the other day.

_FLAAAAASHBAAAACK_

It was a morning where he and Edd were the only ones in the kitchen, and Edd had paused eating his delicious Eddsworld Cereal™.

"Matt? We need to talk. I mean, it's not _that_ serious, but...we need to talk." That sounded scary.

"What is it?" Matt began mindlessly biting the popsicle stick in his mouth.

"Well, uh... I'm kind of worried about you, about...your brain?" Matt cocked his head to the side. "What I mean is... You're not really doing anything to keep it active. You need to keep thinking, or your brain will get lazy, or something like that. And you usually have trouble thinking straight when we need you to.”

Matt took the popsicle stick out. "What! I'm doing lots of things for my brain, like...er..."

"Nnnno you're not."

Matt did usually spend hours in his room daydreaming of having his appearance complimented by a stranger, of being a star onstage, of finding love through bumping into a passerby, of receiving appreciation from his friends…

"Listen," the brunette's voice started, serious. "I think you should start reading, or...do _something_ that gets those, uh, neurons working."

"My morons _are_ working!" Matt protested.

" _No_ – _Just_ –" Edd ran a hand down his face. He nearly looked like he was in physical pain. How unfair of him to act like that when Matt didn't understand something.

"And what about _you_ _?_ And Tom?" he shot. Edd removed his hand and unveiled a bored stare.

"Well, I have my show and Tom has his job." Argh. Nice one. "Just find something to do that calls for hard thinking. It's… it’s good for you, okay?"

Matt gave him the silent treatment at the time, but after thinking it over, he realized that Edd had a point. It was true that he had trouble forming his sentences and remembering what words to use, and as a result, strangers took him less seriously, sometimes altogether telling him to “forget it”. That was a real pain.

It was strange how he could sometimes be at his worst as easily as he could be at his best. His worst must have been when his friends got annoyed at him and re-explained a situation, and his best, when they continued their topic of conversation, and shared jokes and knowing looks with not just each other but with him as well.

To add, after hours of doing nothing, when rediscovering his surroundings in the ultramarine shadows of night, Matt felt a little numb, dazed, or maybe even...disappointed. Like the day had slipped through his fingers. Like maybe he should have done something more.

It was a cycle that repeated itself often if a hijink of the day hadn't extended into the evening. The more it happened, the more it made his heart feel heavy, the more it made him feel nervous, the more he felt stuck, and the more he thought back to what Edd had advised him. He grew to hate it. Stopping the loop was intimidating, but the easiest thing for him to do was to speak with Edd about it. Perhaps he could take a look at what he was currently working on and how too.

He couldn't ask Tom about what it was like to work at the nearby gas station since he was busy at the time, as Matt could tell from the vague bass melodies struggling to be heard over the rain pelting down. Tom had expressed (albeit not directly) just how much he didn’t like being interrupted while playing the bass. So the ginger decided to go chat with Edd.

...Right after he spent another minute on the couch. That was his favorite spot in the entire house. He always liked to imagine he was being carried bridal-style in this position. He re-adjusted his hair, threw his arms forth to help him sit up, hopped off of the sofa’s arm, took his hoodie off to show off his shirt, and headed for the corridor with a slight skip in his step.

Matt knocked on the door next to the whiteboard sign “Edd’s room”.

“Edd?” he began, “Can I come in?”

“Uh… sure.”

Matt heard papers shuffling before his friend finished his answer. The redhead slowly opened the door, head poking through the gap cautiously just to make sure Edd had meant what he had said. The brunette was sitting at his desk, shutting sketchbooks and stacking papers together. Matt leaned on the wall to his right. But just as he opened his mouth, he forgot why he was even there.

“ _Erm_  — I — I’m bored,” he attempted. That was _half_ true. He could just wait for the other half to come back to him later. “Can I watch you draw or something?” he queried, having noticed that Edd was already drawing anyway.

“Oh, yeah, alright. Thought it was time for dinner or something.” Edd glanced at his digital clock on his nightstand, a few steps away. Nine thirty six, Matt read too. Edd had a tendency to get lost in his work, so usually either him or Tom had to come call him for dinner or lunch. (Although they’d sometimes forget to for an hour or two.)

Matt stepped further into his room and spotted Ringo sleeping blissfully on the bed, curled up in a ball on the mussed covers. The entire bedroom was quite messy, with clothes hanging on the closet handles and sketchbooks in every corner, but most important of all considerably dark. The window curtains were still open, as if Edd hasn’t moved from where he was in the moment, even after night had fallen, and the only light source in the room was from the table lamp conveniently resting on his desk, too far from where he drew but probably just bright enough to allow him to approximately see what he was doing. Matt judged these working conditions terrible for his eyesight. Edd never knew how to take care of himself correctly...

Sometimes, after he'd come out of his room for dinner, he would eat far too quickly, ferociously stuffing his mouth with food just to get back to what he was doing sooner. So of course he felt sick afterwards. Not to mention his Cola addiction must have been a monster for his teeth to cope with... Matt and Tom would also catch him clutching his right hand and wincing, muttering his complaints about his finger pain. In these cases, Tom would ask him why he pushed his body to its limits like that, and be answered that he never really thought to, or that he just didn't know. On one occasion did Matt chime in and tell him to take it easy for a while, but it had seemed that he had only taken a break for a day.

Despite this, Edd was competent in knowing how to aid his two best friends, and responsible when it concerned others’ safety. Maybe the reason why he never cared for himself was because he wanted to continue what he was in the middle of more than anything else, so he forgot to be careful.

"Well, you can’t stay in the dark like this!” Matt said indignantly, “Lemme turn the lights on." He reached for the light switch next to the door frame for the big overhead lamp.

“Aw, not that one,” Edd interrupted, putting his hand up as if he could reach over that far. “Everything feels cozy when the lights are off.”

“D’oh…” Matt rolled his eyes and walked over to the lamp a couple of feet behind his friend, next to the window. “This one?”

He heard a hummed answer. Click. This gave Matt a chance to look around the room more from his new position. Edd was right; his room was, in fact, rather warm and snug. It was the green glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, the amber lighting, the shelves full of comic books and sketchbooks, the bean bag in the corner, and of course the black tabby right at home on his bed.

Matt’s attic was still the best room in the house, nevertheless; with its mountains upon mountains of charming knick-knacks and bibelots, growing with fresh new additions almost every day. The only catch to Matt’s collection was that his mates had to get him to clear a mass of the “junk” up every two months just to avoid overflow. Though not without actually helping him, most of the time, since he was persistent on keeping most of his things.

He stopped comparing their rooms once he caught his reflection in the window, since it was dark outside and brighter inside. He smirked in admiration of his features. He lowered his head towards the other person the window was reflecting, who was occupied opening a few jotters back up.

“So, uh, you said you wanted to watch me draw?” Edd turned around to look at the ginger. He seemed to have something distracting or bothering him, from the way his eyebrows came together and his eyes were quite evasive. Alright, maybe that _was_ a bit of a stupid request. Matt nodded and hummed all the same. Edd paused, glancing over the desk and rubbing his fingers with his thumb.

“Okay,” he sighed, “but I work _really_ messily.”

“Doesn’t matter, I just wanna see the _artiste_ at work,” enunciated Matt as he pulled a small stool over to Edd’s desk, at the other’s right. Edd giggled. His hand hovered above a sketchbook before grabbing it.

“Can we chat while you draw?” Matt murmured.

“Yeah, sure.” Edd seized a pencil and smoothed the paper with his free hand, next looking over what was already on the page. Matt didn’t realize he was how hard he was focusing on observing the _artiste_. He studied the way he rolled the pencil in his fingers, the callouses and eraser dust on his hands, him biting his bottom lip, and then him looking right back at him, visibly at least a bit uncomfortable. Edd let out a chuckle.

“Uh, can I help you?” He smiled, raising an eyebrow. Matt blinked, confused. There was no way Edd could have forgotten why he was sitting there, right? His smile faltered, noticing the reaction. “I can’t draw if you’re gonna stare at me like that,” he clarified.

“Was I?” Matt was genuinely surprised. Edd continuously restarted whatever sentence he was trying to pronounce, mixed up. 

“You know what? Lemme draw what just happened,” he suggested, lowering his pencil onto the paper. A few seconds later, a doodle was engraved on it, effectively capturing Matt looming over Edd, with dotted lines connecting Matt’s eyes to Edd’s hands and mouth.

“I did _not_ look like that…” Matt was a little bit upset. There was no way he was hunched over like that, and he couldn’t have possibly looked so intent on killing him.

“Maybe not all cartoonily, but you were staring me down quite badly.” Edd flinched while pronouncing his made-up adverb, his eyes looking upwards during his attempt to think of an actual word.

“Oh, fine. Sorry,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Just back away a little.” Matt complied.

Edd took a few seconds to start writing something after he’d went back to leaning over his desk. Over time, the pauses between scribbles became shorter. Matt watched Edd draw several sets of rectangles on an empty page before gradually filling them with characters, “in” and “out” arrows and captioning text. He was setting up a humorous scene, where a character was causing a catastrophe in the background. After about five minutes, Matt noticed that his companion seemed to almost have forgotten he was there. He guessed that this was what those painters on TV had meant when had talked about being “in the zone”.

While Edd drew, Matt noticed two things. To start, the terrible state that his sketchbook was in. The jotter carried what could be compared to war scars: a handful of partially torn pages, heavily applied tape, Cola stains, scraps of lined paper here and there… Some pages that Edd left alone were particularly busy with handwriting gradually evolving into microscopic chicken-scratch and spaghetti-like arrows travelling in zig-zags that Matt could not make heads or tails of. He amusedly spotted a small tape and glue sandwich; another possible attempt at keeping the pages from falling out (and not a new culinary experiment).

Edd also left a lot of eraser dust lying around, seeing as he was entranced in drawing and writing. Matt couldn’t help but occasionally swat it away, having found a new pet peeve. Funnily enough, Edd didn’t appear to notice his hand at all. In fact, that was the second thing he noticed: that Edd seemed like a totally different person when he was doing what he did best. His expression was somewhat blank and emotionless, but alert, somehow. It was always a strange experience to watch someone focusing on a task without knowing they were being observed. Matt knew this from the couple of times during his scholarship where he had happened to peer through a window of a classroom where a test was being held. A curious thing to see; the stern faces of about twenty students, all hunching over, absorbed in the words on a sheet of paper and whizzing their pens here and there.

Ah, the old days. Days where Matt actually thought for himself and _tried_ to use his time wisely.

Oh! That was it! That was why he was hanging out with Edd! He wanted to stop that horrible loop! Miraculously, Matt only reacted by widening his eyes and not by suddenly jolting, which would have surprised Edd as well. He finally had it. No way he could forget now. _Brain brain brain brain brain,_ Matt chanted to himself. That was a good keyword. He spoke up once Edd paused again.

“I’ve been thinking of what you said the other day, and—”

“What—What other day?” Edd spun his pencil around in his hand.

“Ah, uh, about how you were worried about my brain?”

Edd blinked. Realization flashbanged in his eyes before he started chuckling. “I think that was a month ago, Matt.”

“Well,” he continued indignantly, then realizing he shouldn’t go with that tone, “I thought about it, and...maybe I should try to draw?” An idea popped into his head. “As in, could we draw together? On the same page? I’ve seen people do that.”

Edd’s face lit up. “Hey, yeah!” He flicked the sketchbook to a set of two blank pages.

“I’ll take one color and you another,” Matt said.

“Green.” Edd took a color pencil.

“Teal.” Matt did the same and leaned on his arm, putting his other fist on his hip.

“Okay. You know how the best group chat names are always the ones that aren’t thought through at all?” Edd reflected.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s brainstorm what to draw. Go.” Edd smiled with fierce eyes.

“Uh… fish.”

“What _kind_ of fish??” Edd shot with an unnecessarily pumped up voice with purpose.

“...Salmon?”

“ _Draw it,_ ” he growled.

Matt made a series of profound thinking noises and expressions as he attempted to draw a fish for starters. The atmosphere comically cut from aggressive-game-show (courtesy of Edd) to gentle and quiet: an endearing silence set in while Matt's companion watched him draw an almond-shaped body, scales and a tail while they tuned to the soft bass melodies in the background. Matt paused after he had drawn the essentials. Then he added googly eyes.

Edd had a glint in his eye, he noticed while waiting for an answer. “Can I?” The brunette moved his color pencil near Matt’s doodle. He nodded right away, eyes closed. Edd added a birthday hat. Heh. “What next?” he asked.

“More hats!” Matt cheered. Edd drew a similar salmon in Matt’s amateur art style wearing a top hat. Matt took initiative and scribbled a flounder (not without the accompanying caption and arrow to clarify) bearing a “Foxy Grandpa” baseball cap. Giggling at his friend’s silent answer, Edd drew Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen’s infamous soda cap on a shark’s head. And so the general topic for their oddball scribbles became Spongebob. The pair suggested their ideas to each other as if in regular conversation before drawing them crudely, following a chain reaction that continued on and on. Edd eventually came up with attempting to physically guide Matt’s hand into drawing his idea. It ended horribly, a certain pink starfish’s head being drawn ridiculously long and one eye not even being located on his face. Their laughing fit decided that their drawing session was over. They calmed down after a couple of sighs. Edd began to sketch out a few Spongebobs as Matt picked up the conversation.

“What other hobbies do I have, actually?” Matt perched his index finger under his nose and held his chin with his thumb in thought.

“Baking. Fishing.” The source of the reply didn’t look up from his scribbling.

“True, true…” 

Edd swiftly glided the graphite stick onto the paper, forming rounded rectangles as bases. Matt watched him draw a very wholesome and merry expression on one of them as the ginger pondered the structure of what he wanted to say next.

“Come to think of it” —Edd turned to him with a surprisingly affectionate smile—“I’ve always been pretty good at surf.” All joy drained from Edd’s face instantly.

“What?” Matt cracked a smile, amused. “Do you have something against surfing?” he asked, fake offended.

“I — What? Er…” His green eyes darted around to everything that wasn’t Matt’s. “I didn’t catch what you said at all.”

“Then what was that sudden change of face for?” Matt giggled.

“I just…” —Edd chuckled— “I just made the same expression as the one I was drawing, only realized it while you were talking, sorry.”

A few more giggles passed, after which Matt repeated himself.

“I didn’t know you could surf.” Edd sounded intrigued.

“Yup. Used to live next to the seaside.” Matt puffed his chest up.

"Is that why you like fishing so much?" Edd kept his eyes on his sketches, drawing silly sponges.

Matt hummed in agreement. "It's also why I'm so skilled at it."

"Sure." That sounded doubtful... Matt's grumpy silence urged Edd to look up at him.

"Well, Tom's always the one who catches the most fish..." he explained.

"But I have the right technique..." the ginger whined.

"Why doesn't it work, then?"

Matt opened his mouth, tried to think of something, and closed it right back up. He decided to ignore Edd’s guffaws. They didn’t last long, thankfully.

Edd finished his sponges off after a minute or two. Nice, zany poses. One even jumped off onto the other page. The  _artiste_ pushed himself away from the desk, swivel chair properties making him turn faintly, and reached up high, Matt still passively watching him.

“Sorry, gotta streeeetch...” he groaned. He shuffled back to the desk, soon most gracefully faceplanting into it with floppy arms and making an explosion sound with his mouth. A giggle escaped from Matt’s chest. Edd stayed like so a few seconds more. Matt shifted his attention to the sketchbook-filled shelf to his right.

"Think I could take a look at one of these?" he blurted.

Edd lifted his chin up, still in a lazy pose. Upon seeing what Matt meant, he winced and shoulders tensed. Maybe he occasionally drew weird things. Matt didn't want to think about what that would consist of: he preferred to see the side of his friends that was shown to him since he'd want to be treated like that as well. He mentally patted himself on the back for asking, and so for being polite.

“Hah, give me a second.” Edd got up and stepped behind and around Matt. Instead of being left to awkwardly look up at the green-hoodied boy from his stool while the other flipped through a few sketchbooks, he moved to sit on the bed with Ringo. He took the liberty of petting her on the head. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t mind at all.

Ringo was alright. He didn’t like her as much as Edd did, and got annoyed every time she crept into his room and dozed off on his bed, and pouted for about ten minutes when she swatted at him out of impatience, but she was alright. Matt glanced up towards Edd. He was focused, facing him so that what was in the pages he was looking at was concealed.

While turning his head back towards Ringo, Matt caught something moving in front of him: a small, posable mirror next to Edd's computer reflected Matt's slightly surprised expression, mapping his movements. It was upturned a bit.

He hadn't seen it before. Curious how it was placed there, he thought. His confusion quickly made way for his vanity, because he gave it a smug look without the slightest amount of hesitation. Unfortunately, the expression that was shot back at him was considerably uncomely. Oh dammit.

Matt, now grumpy, raised his chin, making the folds under his jaw disappear. Unflattering angle, you ruined him once again. To make matters worse, Edd apparently saw all of that, since he was already looking at Matt when he turned back to him; he was biting back a smile, as well as laughter, judging from his high, bouncy shoulders. Matt decided to let a chuckle bubble up out of his mouth. That _was_ rather funny.

"Why do you have that there anyway?" he asked. Edd closed the book, sticking a finger in as a bookmark.

"It's an animator thing. Apparently I should use my own body as reference, for expressions and everything."

"Does it work?"

"Well, the mirror works fine as a mirror” —Matt made a face— “but I rarely use it, really. When I do, well, I guess it's alright." Edd glanced at it and shrugged. Matt's face lit up a bit.

"Since you don't really use it, can—?"

"No." Edd knew exactly where Matt was going, he recognized. Being impressed made Edd's answer seem slightly less rude. "You have more than plenty..." He trailed off, his voice softer.

"Mmh." Peeved, Matt resumed petting their cat.

"Mmmmh." Edd opened the book up again.

"Mmmmmmh," Matt continued their spontaneous game.

"Mmh~" Edd teased, his tone sensual.

"Wh— Edd, stop it!" scolded Matt, covering his mouth and inconveniently muffling half of his sentence. Edd looked so cocky. He hated hearing his friend like _that_. Almost as much as he hated dirty jokes, (they weren't gentlemanly!) and Edd had been making them more and more often lately. Maybe he had been seeing someone. Matt repeated the maybe in his head to stop him from getting his hopes up on helping Edd with his eventual romance problems.

Either way, a joke clicked in his mind. "We have children here!" He gestured to Ringo, who was indeed aged six, and his audience of one rewarded him a good chortle. Matt continued by pretending to block her ears with his forefingers hovering above her hearing triangles, struggling to keep his giggles in.

"Sorry, sorry," Edd mumbled, flicking through pages again. Matt looked at him a second more, then lying on his back, seeing it would take a while. Comfy bed.

About two minutes passed before Matt found a sketchbook, a hand holding the sketchbook, and a smirking Edd’s face above his head. He took it, grinning.

 

 


	2. And Love Another (or rather, some news)

 

Hello there. Dudettes here. Uh, here's the thing: I need to start this with a serious tone. I wanna tell you that Chapter 2 is cancelled. And, I won't make any Eddsworld shipping content (either art or fics) after this. Let me explain.

First off, Chap 2 was gonna be in Edd's POV, where we learn about his crush. Edd was going to stare at Matt without him knowing, Tom was going to be walked in on by Ringo and Edd (nothing off-color)(hence his “lock” sentence in the summary), then Edd and Matt were going to talk in the kitchen where M would ask him when he was gonna call out Eduardo. There was going to be a lot of Edd being in on stuff that Matt doesn't know, and being aware of his cheesy thoughts and feelings. At the end, Edd was going to go back to his room and find a drawing by Matt of him in his sketchbook drawn while Edd left to feed Ringo. There was also going to be a parallel to Matt and his transgender acquaintances; Edd was going to have had an aromantic friend who he had helped, and he was going to acknowledge how he was lucky to be able to love.

While writing this, i put a lot of myself into the characters: I wrote Edd's feelings based on my crush last year, I gave the characters some of my habits and opinions, I wrote Matt's procrastination problem based on my own, I got ideas for scenes from the stuff i've randomly experienced this summer and so on... And i'm afraid that i have turned the characters into things that they're not, or that I'm seeing things in them that aren't there and never should have been there.

Eddsworld is a comedic animated series/comic series. _Comedic._ It’s lighthearted, silly, nonsensical, a little bit discontinuous. It is in no way philosophical, serious, and romantic. And so, writing this _Edd/Matt fanfic_ , I feel like I'm considerably far from the source material (despite all the accurate references to it) and that bothers me. I’m taking these comedic characters too seriously. It makes me feel like I should just write my own characters and plot instead of change others’ ones to suit my preferences. That’s quite a strange thing to do, actually. Why am I mooching off of something that was made by someone else? Well, because I’m too scared to make my own universe. Too scared to screw up. And yet it’s the only way I’ll learn, by _doing, trying_. That’s _not_ to say you should never write fanfics. It makes sense to write fanfiction about something that is realistically feasible in the universe of the source material if you love to write and can’t help it. But if the source material starts to feel like a hollow drawing base ([perhaps you don’t know what I mean, click this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af-zfk6Pg_c)), then there is something wrong. The something wrong is that you might not be writing this from love for the source material. You’re just… _using_ it.

I haven’t mentioned the very big elephant in the room yet: the bad ethics of shipping Eddsworld characters in the first place. They're based on _real people_ , bearing the same first names as and being voiced by these real people. Even if you say you don't ship the actual people, it doesn't cancel out the awkwardness of it. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it must be for people who knew Edd G to see what is happening in this fandom. The way I see it, Edd G partially intended these characters to be more fun & silly reflections of his friends, character designs that he could draw when he wanted to draw his friends. In the EW comics by him, I think it's clear that some are based off of silly situations they've actually been in, because of their discontinuity and slight mundanity (i.e. The one where Edd looks for a tissue, and "Cinema"/no.44).

Even if that wasn't why Edd created Eddsworld, he based these characters on him and his _friends_. Do you see where I'm going? Like, what would him or his friends think of this if they could see this fic?

After seeing fanart that Edd G favorited on his DA, I felt _terrible_ for uploading the fic! _Most_ of said fav’d fanart is non-weird. But [ I saw one piece by Elastaronicuted in particular that was dripping with love for the series ](https://www.deviantart.com/elastaronicuted/art/Merry-Christmas-Eddsworld-147689660)and it stayed with me, y’know? After seeing what “normal” fanart was supposed to look like, I felt like I wasn’t respecting the show... I should be making fun or silly or comedic stuff, not genuinely romantic, introspective stuff.

I posted the first chapter before I realized all of this (so that’s why there’s the “Stay tuned” in the notes). I finally came to a concrete decision a while after.

The reason why I'm explaining this is because I want the EW fans (or fans of anything) to reassess the reality of this whole shipping business. I want you to stop and think for a second about what it means to post this kind of stuff.

It really feels to me like nowadays on the internet, fans of anything have a dreadful habit of turning characters into the same silhouettes: for the sake of having vessels to feel exciting, fizzy feelings in. And it's addictive. And it's popular. (It also usually revolves around gay ships and I have no idea why)

I got trapped in this habit too. In fact, I'm not even sure I ship this in the first place. _That's how bad it is._

It's wrong to shape random characters into something they're not. To change them into what you want them to be. This is kind of like loving a song just 'cause you like how it sounds and not paying attention about what the lyrics mean at all, to give an example (a slightly less grave example). AUs that altogether have a different atmosphere or that switch character's personalities are flawed in such a way that they practically abandon the original source characters. Switched-personality AUs seem to be mostly motivated by interesting new character designs. I've seen it happen to so many fandoms.

I feel so bad for having this habit... And many of us fans wave it off as something that's just normal, something that's just becoming habitual and typical. We shouldn't let this go. We can't let characters be shallow vessels, they're more than that! Most of them were thought through by the creator with care, attention and heart. What are you doing if you're not making fan content of something out of love for and admiration of the source, as it is?

Ah. If i can make you stop and think about this, and motivate others to change as well, i'll be quite content.

Okay. Now I can show you what the chapter drawing for Chap 2 was gonna be:

I can also show you how I wrote the fic, a little bit. Links in the notes.

I've recently realized that there is an interesting "Original Work" tag in AO3. I just might post some other things I'll work on. I have lots of vague, sparkling ideas. Vague, but still. :)

And that's it. Cheers.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. It's been quite difficult and complicated, but fun, interesting and new to write Chap 1 (this was my first fic ever!). Thank you for your comments and kudos.
> 
> Behind the scenes photos! I've spent a hell of a lot of time and thought on Chap 1 and I've never seen progress posts for fics before so here you have it! This is in no way the only way to write a fic, just the way i went about it. (Link will be installed in the future)  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Edd's bedroom was inspired by [this art](https://www.deviantart.com/akumarou/art/Edd-s-dreamy-room-676686504) by akumarou on DA. That thing about Ringo is accurate/specific because that actually happened to my cat
> 
> Useful resources: http://www.effingpot.com/chapters/slang/  
> https://theeditorsblog.net/2018/04/08/when-a-comma-isnt-enough/  
> http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/
> 
> This fic is a gift for Wister because I thoroughly adored Life Bites!! I wrote in a style similar to theirs, and realized while writing that they like Edd/Matt so I could gift this to them. Although I think I accidentally took a little bit of wording from said fic, I hope they don't mind.
> 
> The gang have the same age as in canon but I prefer to call them boys rather than M E N. What's more the vets are called along the format of, for example, "tigermen", because of the word "mankind", they're not all male.
> 
> Constructive criticism is dearly appreciated! Stay tuned for Chapter 2: 'And Love Another'.


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